Lack of Enforcement Mechanisms

Fair Trade USA’s standards have loopholes that leave out far too many of the most at-risk workers on dairy farms. Yet the lack of real enforcement mechanisms mean that even the workers to whom the standards purportedly apply lack protections.

In the first place, leaving critical know-your-rights trainings as well as training on workplace risks and hazards as a “nice to have” best practice undermines workers’ ability to protect themselves. Knowledge is truly power, and while Fair Trade USA’s marketing speaks a lot of empowerment, this critical omission does nothing to support workers building their own power.

Yet the protections for people who are informed are also woefully inadequate. The Milked report yet again provides crucial insight into the conditions on New York dairy farms. Fear of employer retaliation is cited repeatedly as an obstacle to speaking up about unsafe practices and conditions, getting medical attention, or organizing for better conditions.24 Yet one of the additions made to the draft Dairy amendment to the Fair Trade USA’s APS was a line to clarify that this standard was in no way an exception to a workers’ atwill employment status.25 At-will employment status, that is, the right to fire workers for no cause, has been highlighted by labor advocates in the U.S. as an obstacle to workers’ organizing. By contrast, Fairtrade International standards explicitly require employers to document reasons for termination26, and the Milk with Dignity program spells out that just cause is required for termination and other disciplinary actions.27 By including a nod to at-will status in their standards, Fair Trade USA signals just whose interests they are focused on protecting: not the workers.

While Fair Trade USA’s Agricultural Production Standard (APS) includes fairly standard language prohibiting discrimination in hiring and firing, as well as other abuses, the standards are written so as to be unenforceable. As noted above, people who work on small farms with fewer than six workers are not required to receive “know-your-rights” trainings, so they wouldn’t necessarily be aware of the rules that exist on paper. Even on larger farms, trainings are only required to cover the Fair Trade USA standard - information about

rights protected by law and by ILO convention are only a continuing improvement for additional points.28 Yet, despite all these obstacles, even if a worker knows their rights and is brave enough to speak up, Fair Trade USA’s grievance process is seriously flawed. In the first place, all aspects of the grievance process outlined in the standards are merely a “best practice” for workers on farms with fewer than six workers. The guidelines for how to resolve a grievance layout that workers should make use of the internal process before engaging with Fair Trade USA. Yet how a worker should escalate a problem is rather confusing, even if one is fluent in English, which many farmworkers may not be. Take a look at Fair Trade USA’s site. It’s easy to find information “For Business” or on “Products.” But there’s nothing “For Workers.” Indeed, the navigation to “Report an Issue” is buried at the bottom of the page - and not even available when navigating on a mobile device.29 It’s definitely clear here who the focus of Fair Trade USA’s programming is: business and consumers, not workers.

Workplace hazards can be deadly and require urgent resolution. Yet in the past, Fair Trade USA has failed to address workers’ concerns in a timely manner. A particularly egregious example of this was when Fair Trade USA certified a Fyffes melon plantation in 2018, despite documented ongoing and unremediated abuses.30 At the time of certification, there was an active complaint filed under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

“The U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) confirmed the complaint’s allegations that Suragroh [the Fyffes plantation] failed to pay the minimum wage, among a lengthy list of other violations, which have also been documented by Honduran government labor inspectors. The complaint remains active and, in October 2018, USDOL cited Fyffes as one of the two cases with ongoing labor rights violations.”31

Yet just one month later, in November of 2018, Fair Trade USA’s Paul Rice wrote in an email to the International Labor Rights Forum that their last audit “did not yield any evidence of ongoing anti-union activities or human rights abuses.” The United States Department of Labor was aware of labor rights violations on the Honduran plantation, yet Fair Trade USA continued to defend their certification. It was only in December, after Fair World Project and allies launched a public campaign that Fair Trade USA finally took action to decertify. The report Fyffes Farms Exposed chronicles the process - and the clear conclusion is that organized workers remain the

It’s definitely clear here who the focus of Fair Trade USA’s programming is: business and consumers, not workers.

Workers’ rights, and their vision and experience, must be central to the development of any programming intended to benefit them.

best defenders of their own rights.32 Solidarity actions from international labor and human rights groups supported their calls to action. But up until the end, Fair Trade USA continued to defend their licensee Fyffes - and still certifies their melons from other farms.

The Fyffes case shows how Fair Trade USA worked to paper over an ongoing labor dispute with positive PR. But the lessons are more than anecdotal. A growing body of research underscores that reliance on an annual audit alone is inadequate to protect workers’ rights. The report Not Fit for Purpose describes some of the structural challenges with audits across MultiStakeholder Initiatives (MSIs):

“Yet, rights holders [in this case, workers] face multiple barriers—fear of reprisal, language, lack of awareness of rights— that may prevent them from reporting abuses or sharing their experiences with external monitors. The individuals that MSIs seek to protect often have little power or few resources to fight or prevent abuse.”33

The rollout of Fair Trade USA’s dairy program, as well as their past process suggests that they have done nothing to address these concerns about how auditing will work to protect workers. Indeed, they have specifically drafted a standard that writes in at-will employment, and thus, workers’ fear of reprisal will continue. And standards that leave trainings on workers’ rights as a nice-to-have best practice instead of a cornerstone of the program makes it clear that workers and their rights are not the central focus.

Fair Trade USA spokespeople speak of their program as providing guidance for employers to improve their practices. In isolation, that sounds good. But this framing makes clear who is the center and focus of their program: business and brands. There’s a fundamental difference between envisioning people as rightsholders or as beneficiaries of a company’s corporate social responsibility programming. Workers’ rights are essential, while corporate social responsibility puts the focus on the company doing good--and hopefully some of those benefits trickling down to the people they employ. But rights can’t be an afterthought. Workers’ rights, and their vision and experience, must be central to the development of any programming intended to benefit them.